smithers18

Quick video below to show the controller working, hooked up to an HP Touchsmart 520 PC: https://youtu.be/nzL8eKVQTz8

I have been tinkering with this off and on since I last posted, only set up a few games so far but it's working great. Only thing I would change are the microswitches. They are really loud clickers, quite stiff and don't feel quite the same as a real fruit machine. I think I'll order a pack of Cherry switches to replace them. There is a bigger problem though... I today bought an all-in-one touchscreen pc and I now plan on building a full cabinet, albeit a mini one! I couldn't resist, I got it for a great price, its a 24 inch touchscreen and it's old but in excellent condition and importantly it runs MFME just fine. I'll try and upload a video playing it if I can upload it somewhere. So my new plan is to basically start again, this time making a full, slim, mini cabinet (perhaps 3/4 size), and this time I'll make a much smaller control panel with fewer buttons, since I'll have a touch screen for the rest. I'll aim to add a coin mech + hopper if I can get a small coin mech for cheap. I actually already have one of those cheap crappy silver coin mechs, you've probably seen them before bundled with arcade kits, but as for how reliable they are I don't know.

Thanks for your comments. @MPU_FIVEI had already read through your build post before I started looking for tips! Also I thought I had bought the triangular buttons myself (for high / low), but for the life of me I can't find them so I just used the regular arcade circle buttons instead. I have gone ahead and labelled the buttons by creating a simple design in Powerpoint of all things, then printing on acetone sheet. They came out good however I must say the acetone is no good for colours (at least not on my printer anyway). It works fine for plain text though so thats what I've gone for. I labelled all but 2 of the buttons and my plan is to hook the buttons up to a joystick encoder (I had a spare 'Zero Delay' sitting around) and then configure Joy2Key to load up different profiles for each game I load, after I hook MFME into a frontend to handle layout selection. I figured this would be the easiest way for me to set up the keypresses per layout file and of course it means I don't need to edit the actual layout file itself, only Joy2Key. Of course I will be connecting the Pac Drive LED encoder board up too but this obviously has no effect on Joy2Key, except from the buttons on the screen may not always align with the buttons on my controller (like you say when certain buttons are mixed around like cancel, collect, exchange etc), but I'm cool with that because the Pac drive will light up / flash the button regardless of where it is so it should become self explanatory. Couple of pictures to show progress attached. I have put the box together with wood glue and metal brackets and added tmolding to the front of the control panel and the edges either side. I've also added the button labels, although they are a little loose and could have done to be a bit larger! I may re-do them but they work for now at least. Next steps - wire everything up, configure it in MFME and set up Joy2Key and integrate it all into a frontend... still plenty to do yet!

Also, in regards to button labelling, has anyone found a good solution for dynamic button labelling, i.e. the labels will change depending on the game that is loaded? I had a bright idea that a stream deck would be perfect for a fruit machine controller but then I found out that they aren't actually individual lcd buttons and instead it is one big screen underneath with transparant buttons laid over the top of a touch matrix. What a disappointment! I wonder if those buttons you see on the start button of certain slot machines are 'real' lcd buttons or are just faking it too? I also though about using some of those tiny little e-ink displays underneath each button that could (somehow) refresh for each game that is loaded, showing the correct button label. That sounded like a headache and would likely end up with a messy looking panel, as well as being extra tricky to set up. It would be dynamic button labels though. Outside of the above I'm not really sure how else it could be done but it would be nice. Even just for those games where the High and Low is swapped around from the 'normal' position on the hold buttons!

Thanks. I figured transparent would be the way. I've found a 50 pack of printable acetate sheets in Amazon for £10.99 which seems reasonable so I'll get them. Cheers.

Hi all. I have finally got round to starting my fruit machine controller after having the buttons in my loft for over a year now! I'd love to build a full cab with a large screen but I've already got a couple of arcades and a pinball so dont really have the room (and the Mrs wouldn't be too pleased with me either!), so next best thing was the desk controller. I wanted to keep it minimal as possible so it fits nicely on my desk, but of course still include an array of buttons to suit most machines. I ended up with 15 buttons in total and I have no intention of hooking it up to a coin hopper etc. (nor would the box have the space regardless!). Progress so far, I have created the box itself and positioned all the buttons where I want them on the top panel. I've added tmold trim to the front of the controller and black vinyl over the top. I still need to put the box together, vinyl the sides, tmold the left and right edges of the box and then of course, wire it all up and configure in MFME. One thing I wanted to ask - does anyone have any tips on adding decals to your buttons? There are some buttons that can be left blank as they'll be different per game but there are the obvious ones like Start, Nudge/Hold, Cancel, Exchange etc. that I'd like to label. I have a printer, but I wondered would it work OK if I were to use just regular paper or should I be using a transparent sheet? Either way, just wanted to say thanks for the inspiration as I have seen many great keyboard builds on here and I think it just adds that extra bit of fun and realism to the hobby! All the best. Steve